The unfocused nature of the parables gave him little structure. He was in command of his own subject but he was sprawling; there was too much he wanted to say. He had too long been alone with his own thoughts. He cited Bede in one breath and then Aquinas in the next. He made Calvinistic allusions to reprobation and predestination, and then Newmanian arguments for bodily privation and chastisement.
