Life

He was a younger son of John Warren of Otterford

Otterford

Otterford is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England. It is situated on the Blackdown Hills, south of Taunton in the Taunton Deane district...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

. He was educated at Crewkerne

Crewkerne

Crewkerne is a town in Somerset, England, situated south west of Yeovil and east of Chard in the South Somerset district close to the border with Dorset. The civil parish of West Crewkerne includes the hamlets of Woolminstone and Henley...

 grammar school

Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

, and St John's College, Oxford

St John's College, Oxford

__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...

, where he matriculated on 3 July 1658. At the Restoration

English Restoration

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...

 of 1660 he left Oxford with his tutor. After a year at Reading

Reading, Berkshire

Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

 he returned to Otterford, and began to preach. He held no living, but was silenced by the Uniformity Act 1662.

After this he employed himself as a tutor—Warren was one of the first nonconformists who trained students for the ministry. The date at which he began this work was not later than 1671, when John Shower

John Shower

-Life:The elder brother of Sir Bartholomew Shower, he was born at Exeter, and baptised on 18 May 1657. His father, William, a wealthy merchant, died about 1661, leaving a widow and four sons. Shower was educated in turn at Exeter, and at Taunton under Matthew Warren....

 entered with him. Among his early pupils was Christopher Taylor (died 26 October 1723), in whose ordination at Lyme Regis

Lyme Regis

Lyme Regis is a coastal town in West Dorset, England, situated 25 miles west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. The town lies in Lyme Bay, on the English Channel coast at the Dorset-Devon border...

, Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, he took part on 25 August 1687. By this time he had moved to Taunton

Taunton

Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....

, where, with Emanuel Hartford (died 4 August 1706, aged 65), he founded a dissenting congregation under the declaration for liberty of conscience (1687).

At Taunton he continued his academy; his most distinguished pupil was Henry Grove

Henry Grove

Henry Grove was an English nonconformist minister, theologian, and dissenting tutor.-Life:He was born at Taunton, Somerset, on 4 January 1684...

. Warren encouraged his students to read modern books and promoted biblical criticism. He was successful in his congregation at Paul's meeting; originally presbyterian, but it became congregationalist. He died at Taunton on 14 June 1706. His funeral sermon was preached by John Sprint of Milbournport. He was married and left issue. Christopher Taylor wrote a Latin epitaph for him.