His father died about four years after his marriage, and Mrs. Johnson, with her two children, a son and a daughter, settled at Canterbury, where John was sent to the King's School.
In 1697 the vicarage of St. John's, which included Margate, became void, and Archbishop Thomas Tenison appointed Johnson to the benefice.
Johnson took two or three boarders to teach with his two sons, and growing absorbed in the work of education, he resigned his clerical charge, and settled at Appledore in 1703.
of the ‘Vade Mecum,’ containing ‘the Canonical Codes of the Primitive, Universal, Eastern, and Western Church down to the year 787,’ with explanatory notes.
In 1714 Johnson gave further expression to his views in his major work, ‘The Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar Unvail'd and Supported.’ In 1717 he published part ii.
After his death his daughters published ‘The Primitive Communicant,’ in three discourses, ‘Daniel's Prophecy of the LXX Weeks explained,’ and two sermons on ‘The Nature of God and His True Worship.’ These, with a sermon preached at Canterbury school-feast, with a preface contending that there were ‘no alphabetical letters before Moses,’ are contained in one volume, with a life of the author by Thomas Brett, published in 1748.