CHINA. 1751. 283 



Tofs e in heaven if it were true or not. Yet 

 they have a very limited knowledge of the Su- 

 preme Being ; for being a/ked who was the 

 Creator of heaven and earth and of every via- 

 ble thing, they faid it was a great Lord. If 

 they were further afked, whether he was yet 

 alive, they anfwered no, he died fome years 

 ago. However, their priefts, in their morning, 

 evening, and other prayers, and when they 

 facriflce, bowed three times to the ground, as if 

 the Trinity was not unknown to them f . They 

 are greatly afraid of the evil fpirit, and be- 

 lieve, that if he was not withheld by a fuperior 

 Power, he would be able to do as much mif- 

 chief as he pleafed ; for which reafon they 

 pray to him to fpare them. They have a num- 



e This is a name they haye learned from the Europeans, 

 by which they mean God; but in the Cbinefe language he 

 is called To-en, heaven, &c. 



f It is from thefe and the like feeble hints that the party 

 of unbelievers have got fo frequent opportunities to ridi- 

 cule the facred doctrines of the Chriilians. Such is the ar- 

 gument of the Trinity doctrine difcovered even among the 

 Tibetans, by a late learned writer, and which he deciphered 

 from an idol with three heads, on a pafte coin, with fome 

 Tibetan characters : which his friend fo well acquainted in 

 the Hibernian antiquities gave out to be an old Irijh In-j 

 fcription. F. 



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