This book treats Johnson's concepts of the nature, officers, ordinances, authority, and duties of the Church of Jesus Christ is its local expressions. The present work, Love Characteristic of the Deity , was preached before the Charleston Baptist Association in November of 1822. This association, the First Baptist Association in the South, having within its membership the first Southern Baptist Church, was founded in 1751 and adopted as its confession of faith the Second London Confession of 1689. The Association had maintained the Calvinism of the confession as a statement of Christian orthodoxy at least until the end of the nineteenth century. The sermon constitutes an accurate and muscular exposition of the doctrine of God's love as illuminating and illuminated by the doctrines of grace.
Several emphases deserve some degree of preview.
First, Johnson subjugates everything to the glory of God. Nothing occurs in history but that some aspect of the character of God will receive more abundant display and, thereby, a greater manifestation of his glory. Second, in harmony with God's major purpose, the biblical doctrine of providence contributes healthily to the discussion. No event, not even the fall of the angels and the apostasy of man, takes God by surprise. Additionally, God's love is not prostituted but is discriminate and particular.