[1] When all the prisons were broken vp, and the pri|soners set at libertie, he being therefore so deliuered, followed them, & at Blackeheath when the greatest multitude was there got togither (as some write) he made a sermon, taking his saieng or common prouerbe for his theame, wherevpon to intreat,

Iohn Ball [...]is sermon to [...]he rebels. When Adam delu'd, and Eue span,

Who was then a gentleman?

and so continuing his sermon, went about to prooue by the words of that prouerbe, that from the begin|ning, all men by nature were created alike, and that bondage or seruitude came in by iniust oppression of naughtie men. For if God would haue had anie bondmen from the beginning, he would haue ap|pointed who should be bond & who free. And therefore he exhorted them to consider, that now the time was come appointed to them by God, in which they might (if they would) cast off the yoke of bondage, & recouer libertie. He counselled them therefore to remember themselues, and to take good hearts vnto them, that after the manner of a good husband that tilleth his ground, and riddeth out thereof such euill wéeds as choke and destroie the good corne, they might destroie first the great lords of the realme, and after the iud|ges and lawiers, questmoongers, and all other whom they vndertooke to be against the commons, for so might they procure peace and suertie to themselues in time to come, if dispatching out of the waie the great men, there should be an equalitie in libertie, no difference in degrées of nobilitie, but a like dig|nitie and equall authoritie in all things brought in among them.