Two portraits of the bishop are at Magdalen College, Oxford; one in the chaplain’s residence at Bromley College; and three at Walsingham Abbey, Norfolk, the seat of Henry Lee Warner, esq., his descendant, and a property which had been bought by the bishop.
Warner was married. Some authorities state that his wife was Bridget, widow of Robert Abbot, bishop of Salisbury; others that she was the widow of George Abbot, archbishop of Canterbury; but these statements have been conclusively disproved (see Notes and Queries, 9th ser. ii. passim). He died without issue, and on his death his estates descended to his nephew John Lee, archdeacon of Rochester, who was the son of his sister, and who afterwards assumed the additional name of Warner in compliance with the terms of the bishop's will,
Warner was 'a man of decided character and cheerful and undaunted spirit, an accurate logician and philosopher, and well-versed in the fathers and schoolmen.' His charities were munificent. The net value of the see of Rochester was barely 500l. a year, but his father left him a considerable fortune acquired by trade, and it is said that a godmother, who was a relative, left him 10,000l. Altogether his known benefactions in his lifetime and by his will amounted to over 30,000l; which included large gifts to the libraries of Magdalen College, Rochester and Canterbury Cathedrals, To the last he gave its present costly font; 8,500l. was paid out of his estate for building Bromley College, Kent, for the relief of distressed widows of the clergy; and he gave many other charitable gifts, among them 6,000l. to the relief of the sequestered clergy, and 2,500l., for the redemption out of slavery of captives in Barbary. He further charged by will his estate at Swaton in Lincolnshire (which is still held by his descendants) with the perpetual payment of 450l. per annum for the endowment of Bromley College, and he bequeathed 80l. per annum for the foundation of Scottish scholarships at Balliol College, Oxford, so that, as he expressed it, 'there may never be wanting in Scotland some who shall support the ecclesiastical establishment of England.'
Besides the works above mentioned, Warner was the author of various sermons, and liberally contributed to Matthew Poole's 'Synopsis,' the most voluminous commentary then extant on the Bible. In 1645 he published ' The Gayne of Losse, or Temporal Losses spiritually improved, in a Century and one Decad of Meditations and Resolves.' In 1656 he entered into correspondence with Jeremy Taylor [q. v.] on the subject of Taylor's 'Unum Necessarium, or the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance,' especially concerning those chapters dealing with original sin, which Taylor had endeavoured to explain away in a manner inconsistent with the tenets of the church of England.
[Biogr. Brit. ed. 1763. vol. vi. pt. ii. p. 4159; Wood's Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, 1813, iii. 731, with Fasti; Hasted's Kent. ed. 1778. i. 94, ii. 44, &c.; Bloxam's Magdalen Coll. Register, ed, 1873, iv. 224 sq.; Pearman's Dioc. Hist, of Rochester, 1897, p. 280, &c.]
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:
- '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.
- 'Conclusiones ex universa theologia propugnandae in Collegio Anglicano Soc. Jesu,' Liège, 1670, 4to.
- 'Dr. Stillingfleet still against Stillingfleet or the Examination of Dr. Stillingfleet against Dr. Stillingfleet examined,' 1675, 12mo.
- '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).
- 'Ecclesiae Primitivae Clericus: cujus Gradus, Educatio, Tonsura, Chorus, Vita Communis, Hierarchia exponuntur,' 1686, 4to.
- 'A Defence of the Doctrine and
