For all Owen’s reputation as a champion of high Calvinism, the catechism he prepared for children made no mention of the divine decrees of election and reprobation or the extent or effect of the atonement. The Primer was focused on teaching children the central themes of the evangelical preaching that dominated mid-seventeenth-century England. The “young learners” using this book would know how to read and count and would understand basic ideas about God as Trinity, the creation of humanity, the