As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
Ver. 16. As free] See Trapp on " Gal 5:13 "
As free, and not using, &c.] Free in respect of our consciences, exempted from human powers, and yet, as servants of God, bouud in conscience to obey him in obeying them, so far forth as he doth command us to obey them. (Downame.)
For a cloak] Or cover. This were to put light not under a bushel, but under a dunghill. Beza thinks the apostle here alludes to that old custom at Rome, that those that were manumitted or set free should go with their heads covered, who before used to go bareheaded. Religion is an ill cloak of maliciousness; and will surely serve hypocritical libertines as the disguise Ahab put on and perished.