Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Warner, John (1628-1692)

by James McMullen Rigg

WARNER, JOHN (1628–1692), Jesuit, born in Warwickshire in 1628, was educated and ordained priest in Spain. For some years prior to 1663, when he entered the Jesuit order, he held the chair of philosophy and divinity in the English College at Douay. He was afterwards successively lecturer in divinity in the Jesuit college at Liège and prolocutor of the order at Paris, where he took the fourth vow on 2 Feb. 1673. He was appointed rector of Liège in 1678, and on 4 Dec. 1679 provincial of his order. He was reputed to be implicated in the 'popish plot.' He assisted at the twelfth general congregation of the Jesuit order at Rome, 21 June 6 Sept. 1682. He was rector of St. Omer, 1683-6, and in the latter year was appointed confessor to James II, whom on the revolution he followed to France. He died at Paris on 2 Nov. 1692. Some of his papers are preserved at Stonyhurst College.

Warner was author of:

1. 'Vindiciae censurae Duacenae, seu confutatio scripti cujusdam Thomae Albii [i.e. Thomas White (1582-1676), q. v.] contra latum a S. facilitate theologica Duacena in 22 propositiones ejus censuram. Cui praefigitur Albianae censurae scopus, et alia quaedam ejus dogmata referuntur,' published under the pseudonym 'Jonas Thamon,' Douay, 1661, 4to.
2. 'Conclusiones ex universa theologia propugnandae in Collegio Anglicano Soc. Jesu,' Liège, 1670, 4to.
3. 'Dr. Stillingfleet still against Stillingfleet or the Examination of Dr. Stillingfleet against Dr. Stillingfleet examined,' 1675, 12mo.
4. 'Duarum Epistolarum Georgii Morlaei S. T. D. et Episcopi Wintoniensis ad Janum Ulitium Revisio. In qua de Orationibus pro Defunctis, Sanctorum Invocatione, Diis Gentilium, et Idolatria agitur,' 1683, 4to (English version entitled 'A Revision of Dr. George Morlei's Judgment in Matters of Religion,' &c., 1683, 4to).
5. 'Ecclesiae Primitivae Clericus: cujus Gradus, Educatio, Tonsura, Chorus, Vita Communis, Hierarchia exponuntur,' 1686, 4to.
6. 'A Defence of the Doctrine and Holy Rites of the Roman Catholic Church from the Calumnies and Cavils of Dr. Burnet's "Mystery of Iniquity Unveiled," ' London, 1688, 2nd edit, 8vo. Warner has also been credited with the authorship of 'Blakloanas Haeresis olim in Pelagio et Manichaeis damnatae nunc denuo renascentis Historia et Confutatio,' an attack on Thomas White, who wrote under the pseudonym Thomas Blackloe. It was published at Ghent, 1675, 4to, as by M. Lominus, which was really a pseudonym for Peter Talbot [q. v.] [cp. also art. Sergeant, John].

   [Dodd's Church Hist, (fol.)iii. 491; Campana di Cavelli's Derniers Stuarts a St. Germain-en-Laye, i. 33; Secret Services of Charles II and James II (Camden Soc.); Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. App. p. 334, 10th Rep. App. iv. 330, 12th Rep. App. vi. 61, 13th Rep. App. vi. 72 et seq.; Florus Anglo- Bavaricus, p. 108; Evelyn's Diary, 5 Nov. 1688; Luttrell's Relation of State Affai'rs, i. 399, ii. 606; Macaulay's Hist. of England, ii. 220; Bibliotheque de la Compagnie de Jesus, ed. Sommervogel, 1898; Oliver's Collections towards illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English, and Irish Members of the Society of Jesus, 1845.]

   J. M. R.