The invitation is _free._ So it is throughout the Bible. The blessings of salvation are the gift of God. They are offered to sinners with the freeness of Divine munificence. Not only _may_ they be had without a price, but if they are to be had at all it _must_ be without a price. This is one of their special peculiarities. In treating with our fellow-men in the communication of good, we make distinctions. From some, who can afford it, we take an equivalent; from others, who cannot, we take none. We _sell_ to the rich, we _give_ to the poor. In the present case there is no distinction. All are poor. All are alike poor; and he who presumes to bring what he imagines a price, of whatever kind, forfeits the blessings, and is "sent empty away." The invitation, too, is _universal;_ for all men, in regard to divine and spiritual things, are naturally inconsiderate and foolish, negligent and improvident of their best and highest interests. And it is _earnest, repeated, importunate._ Is not this wonderful? Ought not the earnestness and the importunity to be all on the other side? Should not we find men entreating God to bestow the blessings, not God entreating men to accept them? _Wonderful?_ "No," we may answer in the terms of the Negro woman to the missionary when he put the question, "Is this not wonderful?" "No, Massa, it be _just like Him._" It is in the true style of infinite benevolence. But is it not wonderful that sinners should refuse the invitation? It is not in one view, and it is in another. It is _not,_ when we consider their depravity and alienation from God. It _is,_ when we think of their natural desire for happiness, and the manifest impossibility of the object of their desire being ever found, otherwise than by their acceptance of them.--_Wardlaw._ Verse 7. The reproof given is duty discharged, and the retort in return is a fresh call to repentance for sin past, and a caution against sin to come.--_Flavel._ Here caution is given how we tender reprehension to arrogant and scornful natures, whose manner it is to esteem it for contumely, and accordingly to return it.--_Lord Bacon._ The three verses, 7-9, in their general preceptive form, seem somewhat to interrupt the continuity of the invitation which Wisdom utters. The order of thought is, however, this: "I speak to you, the simple, the open ones, for you have yet ears to hear; but from the scorner or evil-doer of such, I turn away." The rules which govern human teachers, leading them to choose willing or fit disciples, are the laws also of the Divine Educator. So taken, the words are parallel to Matt. vii. 2, and find an illustration in the difference between our Lord's teaching to His disciples and to them that were without.--_Plumptre._