However he abandoned his study of the law, and obtained license as a preacher of the gospel as a Presbyterian minister in 1672 by the presbytery of Moray.

[5][6] Coming under the notice of Archbishop Sharp as a preacher at conventicles, he was ordered to be apprehended in 1674; decreets and letters of inter-communing were passed against him 6 August 1675.

Some of its views in favour of a universal reference in the work of Christ were strongly objected to by certain of his brethren who saw it in manuscript, and it was not till 1722 that the first part was published, the second appearing in 1749.

In December 1681 he was again arrested and committed to Blackness Castle as a prisoner until he paid a fine of five thousand marks and gave security either to give up preaching or quit the kingdom.

[11][12] There was a Breach in the Reformed Presbyterian Church Synod in 1753 following the publication of the book A Treatise on Justifying Faith by James Fraser of Brea, who had written it while a prisoner on the Bass Rock.

[11] He married (1) 31 July 1672,[15] Isobel Gray (died October 1676), daughter of Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, and widow of William Hamilton, merchant, Edinburgh, and had issue — Jean Fraser (married, as his second wife, 1698, Hugh Bose of Kilravock), died without children; Beatrice (married William Burnet, minister of Falkirk) (2) Christian (died without children about 1696), daughter of John Inglis, minister of Hamilton, and widow of Alexander Carmichael, minister of Pettinain.