He had been a wealthy man in England, and was well educated and amiable; but after his arrival at Massachusetts Bay he seems to have wanted firmness to resist the intolerant spirit and narrow views of Endicot.

He died in 1649.

Mr.
Palfrey remarks: "Whether it was owing to solicitude as to the course of affairs in England after the downfall of the Royal power, or to the absence of the moderating influence of Winthrop, or to sentiments engendered, on the one hand by the alarm from the Presbyterians in 1646, and on the other by the confidence inspired by the [Congregational] Synod in 1648, or to all these causes in their degree, the years 1650 and 1651 appear to have been some of more than common sensibility in Massachusetts to danger from _Heretics_."[100] In 1650, the General Court condemned, and ordered to be publicly burnt, a book entitled "The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, Justification, etc., Clearing of some Common Errors," written and published in England, by Mr.Pynchion, "an ancient and venerable magistrate." This book was deficient in orthodoxy, in the estimation of Mr.Endicot and his colleagues, was condemned to be burnt, and the author was summoned to answer for it at the bar of the inquisitorial court.

His explanation was unsatisfactory; and he was commanded to appear a second time, under a penalty of one hundred pounds; but he returned to England, and left his inquisitors without further remedy.
"About the same time," says Mr.Palfrey, "the General Court had a difficulty with the Church of Malden.

Mr.Marmaduke Matthews having 'given offence to magistrates, elders, and many brethren, in some unsafe and unsound expressions in his public teaching,' and the Church of Malden having proceeded to ordain him, in disregard of remonstrances from 'both magistrates, ministers, and churches,' Matthews was fined ten pounds for assuming the sacred office, and the Church was summoned to make its defence" (Massachusetts Records, III., 237); which "failing to do satisfactorily, it was punished by a fine of fifty pounds--Mr.
Hathorne, Mr.Leverett, and seven other Deputies recording their votes against the sentence." (_Ibid._ 252; compare 276, 289.) But these reputed fathers of civil and religious liberty not only held inquisition over the religious writings and teachings of magistrates and ministers, and the independence of their Congregational Churches, but even over the property, the income, and the apparel of individuals; for in this same year, 1651, they passed a Sumptuary Act.