About the nineteenth year of his age, he, being then unresolved what
religion to adhere to, and considering how much it concerned his soul to
choose the most orthodox, did therefore,--though his youth and health
promised him a long life--to rectify all scruples that might concern
that, presently lay aside all study of the law, and of all other
sciences that might give him a denomination; and began seriously to
survey and consider the body of Divinity, as it was then controverted
betwixt the Reformed and the Roman Church. And, as God's blessed
Spirit did then awaken him to the search, and in that industry
did never forsake him--they be his own words (in his preface to
"Pseudo-Martyr")--so he calls the same Holy Spirit to witness this
protestation; that in that disquisition and search he proceeded with
humility and diffidence in himself; and by that which he took to be the
safest way; namely, frequent prayers, and an indifferent affection to
both parties; and, indeed, Truth had too much light about her to be hid
from so sharp an inquirer; and he had too much ingenuity not to
acknowledge he had found her.

Being to undertake this search, he believed the Cardinal Bellarmine to
be the best defender of the Roman cause, and therefore betook himself to
the examination of his reasons. The cause was weighty, and wilful delays
had been inexcusable both towards God and his own conscience: he
therefore proceeded in this search with all moderate haste, and about
the twentieth year of his age did show the then Dean of
Gloucester--whose name my memory hath now lost--all the Cardinal's works
marked with many weighty observations under his own hand; which works
were bequeathed by him, at his death, as a legacy to a most dear friend.

About a year following he resolved to travel: and the Earl of Essex
going first to Cales, and after the Island voyages, the first anno 1596,
the second 1597, he took the advantage of those opportunities, waited
upon his Lordship, and was an eye-witness of those happy and unhappy
employments.

But he returned not back into England till he had staid some years,
first in Italy and then in Spain, where he made many useful observations
of those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returned
perfect in their languages.

The time that he spent in Spain was, at his first going into Italy,
designed for travelling to the Holy Land, and for viewing Jerusalem and
the Sepulchre of our Saviour. But a