Editor’s Introduction
James Fraser of Brea was born into a family of means and influence. His father, Sir James Fraser, Governor of the Castle of Inverness,1Alexander Mackenzie, History of the Frasers of Lovat, with genealogies of the principal families of the name: to which is added those of Dunballoch and Phopachy (Inverness: A&W Mackenzie, 1896), 181. was knighted by King James VI, and his uncle, Lord Lovat, was a staunch Covenanter. Birth into an auspicious and wealthy family was not the advantage that many imagine. Fraser recounts in his Memoirs how his position enabled him to indulge youthful lusts while appearing outwardly as a serious Christian. He notes, “Several lusts not being destroyed, but kept, notwithstanding of all my duties, especially pleasures, did in the end choke any good that was sown, Luke 8:14. Evil company did me likewise much harm; and, through continual converse with them, I was transformed into their image, 1 Cor. 5:6 and 15:33.”2Memoirs, 4.
Fraser trained for the bar,3History of the Frasers, 524. but his youthful intentions were redirected when he was converted to Christ and became a thorough Presbyterian and Covenanter. It was during a communion season that he wrestled with his desperate spiritual condition, and “feared that I should eat and drink damnation to my own soul, and then that the remedilessness of my condition would be out of doubt.”4Memoirs, 24. He recounts the spiritual struggle,
Hanging, therefore, by the small thread, I went to prayer with many sad complaints; and the Lord, while I was like the prodigal son yet a great way off, ran to meet me. I addressed myself to speak to the Lord Christ, and then was there a Gospel view given me of Him; and some considerations and representations of Christ were brought into my mind, that He was the Mediator, a friend, and Saviour to poor sinners, their only helper, the way, and the truth, and the life, that died for them, and one willing to be reconciled. What shall I say? While I was thus exercised, a marvellous light shined on my understanding, and with the eyes of my mind, not of my body, I saw that Just One in His glory, and love, and offices, and beauty of His person; such a sight as I never did see anything like it, and which did so swallow me up as I turned speechless, and only said, What is this? And where am I now? The glory, love, and loveliness of Jesus, revealed to me, did very far exceed all that ever I saw or could see in the world, insomuch that there was no comparison. I was drawn by this, and after I had recovered, I said, O Lord, Thou hast overcome me and all that I have, is Thine; Heart and hand, and all that I have, is Thine; I am content to live and die with Thee. Begone, poor world, and beggarly vanities, and despiteful devil and flesh, I will serve you no longer; I know now of a master and lover to whom henceforth I will dedicate myself.5Memoirs, 24-25.
Following studies in divinity, he was licensed to preach by the Field Presbytery of Moray in 1670.6Ibid. This placed Fraser in the crosshairs of the Anglican establishment which resulted in imprisonment on the Bass Rock in 1677, where he underwent considerable suffering for “illegal” preaching. He continued to oppose the worship and prelacy of the Church of England, and was moved to a prison in Edinburgh two years later, though released shortly thereafter.
While in prison, he gained proficiency in Hebrew and Greek. He also wrote a book on justifying faith, in which he expressed heterodox views in favour of a form of universalism. In 1681, he was again arrested and committed to Blackness Castle as a prisoner. After six weeks, he was released and banished from Scotland. During his wandering he was apprehended and imprisoned in London in 1683.
Fraser returned to Scotland in 1687, after the ‘Glorious Revolution’, where he became parish minister in Culross, Perthshire, until his death in 1698. Fraser was known as a diligent and earnest preacher. On each new Sabbath, Fraser and his like-minded Session expected some young converts to be added to the church and some old backsliders to be restored to it. The following excerpt from his Memoirs evidences this tender concern for the salvation of sinners. He shows in practical ways what it means to wage sober spiritual warfare as a soldier of Christ.
– James Wanliss, Ph.D
General and Special Rules for Ordering My Speech, Behaviour, and Practice
Selected From: James Fraser, Memoirs of the Rev. James Fraser of Brea (Edinburgh: John Menzies & Co., 1891), 197-202.
The Lord’s people walk by rule; their life is fitly compared, Heb. 10:1, to a race; and I have therefore thought upon some general rules to be observed as the foundation of all true religion.
I. General Rules.
1st, Labour to know and find out wherein a man’s chief happiness doth consist: have an end to follow; till a man intend right, he can never have a right motion. Fix the heart in the belief of this, that the enjoyment of God in Christ is our happiness; and make the heart to close with this. Alas! the most of us walk at random, like beasts, without an end. This is the foundation of all, John 17:3, “It is life eternal to know God, and Whom He hath sent.”
2nd, It will much contribute to our motion in the way, to be armed with a strong and deliberate resolution to walk in such ways; this will determine us, Ps. 119:106, 111, “I have chosen Thy precepts as mine heritage for ever.” “I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will observe all Thy righteous judgments.” Consider and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of religion, and then thoroughly determine and bind thyself with the strongest engagements; be positive, not halting.
3rd, Labour to have and keep right, sound, orthodox, and charitable thoughts of God: fix a lovely character of God in thy heart, such as, Exod. 34:6, 7. Fix the faith of God’s attributes—study this most; “This is life eternal.” Rom. 10:14, “How shall they call on Him whom they have not known?” It is a superstitious unprofitable worship that is not to the true God.
4th, Be always in duty; racers must keep the gate: never be idle. As there is an end, so there is a way; never sit still. Lay it as a foundation, to be always in duty; never to quit that, whatever it be. 1 Cor. 15:58, “Always abounding in the work of the Lord.” Job 17:9, “The righteous holdeth on in his way.” We by idleness lose much; we are employed in such a work as we must not suffer to grow cold. Oh, our interruptions do us much prejudice! Little and little makes good speed at last.
5th, Walk by faith and not by sense; that is, make the Scriptures thy rule; think, love, judge, and do according to this. Examine all things: As a man hath an end and way so hath he a rule to direct him; this is the Scriptures, 2 Cor. 5:7; Deut. 4:1, 2; and 6:1, 2. Reject all other guides but this.
6th, Believe always, and never despair; keep the heart up. Whatever come, lose not your confidence; never sink by discouragement, hoping always steadfastly unto the end. “Trust in Him at all times, ye people.” Heb. 3:6, “Hold fast your confidence stedfast unto the end.” No ground ever for despair—the ground of faith remains always; therefore never lose your hope: “It is good for a man to hope,” Lam. 3:26; Isa. 26:4.
7th, Live near the Lord always; that which is expressed in Scripture by “walking with God, setting Him always at our right hand.” Let heart, thoughts, and affections, retain ever some impressions of His presence; fear always. Keep yourselves in the love of God; if departed, return again; if returned, keep with Him. All good is with God, and all ill comes from His absence and distance; “Woe unto them when I leave them.” Lose not your guide by any means; He is “all things,” life, light, strength, and health. Ye cannot be without this, Hos. 12:6, “Wait continually on thy God.” Ps. 16:8; Gen. 17:1; John 15:4, 5, 6, “Without Me ye can do nothing.” Ps. 73:28, “It is good for me to draw near to God.”
8th, Be always humble; never murmur; be always vile in thine own eyes; justify the Lord always; submit to every dispensation; let never your spirits be rankled or fired. Mic. 6:8, “Walk humbly with thy God.”
9th, Keep your spirits sober and in health; if sick and distempered, ye cannot travel: not drunken with the “cares of this world,” Luke 12:45. Be not lifted up with pride or passion; he whose spirit is lifted up within him is not right. Keep your spirits in an equal balance, 1 Pet. 5:8, “Be sober;” suffer not your passions to run to excess: sober in weeping, rejoicing, speaking, doing, fearing, Phil. 4:5; 1 Cor. 7:30. Be always master of thyself; unshaken.
10th, Study temperance—this is objective sobriety; temperance in meat, drink, sleep, and recreations. Shun excess, by which the spirits are indisposed. The Heathen call temperance the ground-work and foundation of all virtue, 2 Pet. 1:5, 6; Prov. 23:20. Racers must be dieted and temperate, 1 Cor. 9:25, “He that warreth must be temperate in all things.” Surfeiting is forbidden, Luke 21:34.
11th, Beware of worldly-mindedness, and being too much engaged in the world: “He that warreth doth not entangle himself in the affairs of this life,” 2 Tim. 2:4. Have as little ado in the world as ye can; take no more in hand than ye are well able to master. If engaged, flee as a bird out of the snare, and put thy house in order, but put the world out of thy heart especially: “No man can serve two masters.”
12th, Be watchful: beware of a spirit of slumber, stand always on your guard; “Watch in all things,” as the apostle commanded Timothy. “Blessed is the man that feareth always.” Be always suspicious, Prov. 28:14. Never turn secure or careless; remember your adversary is still busy, and his snares are continually set: “Be vigilant” therefore, 1 Pet. 5:8. Keep your eyes always open; look and ponder everything; be not rash or hasty.
13th, Be diligent in the means both public and private, in hearing, meditation, Christian conference, ejaculatory prayer, reading; especially private prayer; a man cannot be a Christian without this. Ye cannot work or travel unless ye eat, Prov. 10:4, “The hand of the diligent maketh rich.”
14th, Look upon sin as the greatest evil, and never to be done; whatever ye do, shun sin, and shun tentations to evil as well as evil itself.
II. Rules I daily follow in my daily walk: or, some special Rules for ordering my own particular conversation.
1st, In imitation of Christ and His apostles, and to get good done, I purpose to rise timely every morning, Job 1:5; 2 Chron. 36:15.
2nd, To propose, when I am up, some work to be done, or the work of the day, and how and when to do it, and to engage my heart to it, 1 Tim. 4:7, and even to call myself to account, and to mourn for failings.
3rd, To spend a competent portion of time every day in prayer, reading, meditating, spiritual exercises, morning, midday, evening, and ere I go to bed.
4th, Once in the month either the end or middle of it, I keep a day of humiliation for the public condition, for the Lord’s people and their sad condition, for the raising up the work and people of God.
5th, I spend, by and attour this, one for my own private condition, in conflicting with spiritual evils, and to get my heart more holy, or to get through some special exercise once in six weeks.
6th, I spend every week once, four hours over and above my daily portion in private for some special causes relating either to myself or others, relating either to temporal or civil affairs.
7th, To spend some time on Saturday towards night for preparation to the Sabbath.
8th, To spend six or seven days together once in a year, when I have greatest conveniency, wholly and only on spiritual accounts.
9th, My ordinary and extraordinary works, which every day I strive to finish, are, to mortify sin, to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord, to glorify God, to instruct others and do them good, to attend on and walk closely with the Lord. This I propose every day to myself to do and finish, and at evening do examine myself of my progress and diligence therein; this is my work and exercise.
10th, To be always on my guard, in a watchful, fearing frame.
III. Rules in Speaking.
I have found by Scripture and experience how much it concerns us to watch our tongues, it being that instrument whereby we may do most ill or good to others, that hath influence on the whole body. And seeing religion kyths most in this (“He that bridleth not his tongue, his religion is vain;” and “whoso can, is a perfect man”) I will therefore set down some rules which I have proposed to myself for ordering my speech and words.
1st, Speak nothing materially sinful, such as lying, swearing, cursing, scolding, back biting, or anything that may dishonour God, or wrong your neighbor, Ps. 34:13.
2nd, Speak no idle language, that hath no profit or edification, such as frothy words, foolish talking and jesting; but let them be seasoned with grace, as with salt, Eph. 5:4, Matt. 12:36.
3rd, Speak not much; be sparing in discourse, James 1:19, “Slow to speak.” “In the multitude of words there wants not sin.”
4th, Speak soberly both as to matter and manner. It is said of the whore, Prov. 7:11, “She is loud and clamorous;” and of some, Jude, verse 16, that they “speak high swelling words.” This is contrary to Christ, whose “voice was not heard in the streets.” A meek, quiet spirit is calm in words, loud, violent, earnest speaking argues a proud, distempered, unmortified heart.
5th, Speak not rashly nor hastily; be not precipitate in speaking; advise ere ye speak; do not out with everything ye conceive: “The righteous studieth to answer.”
6th, Speak weightily and seriously, reverently and gravely, in religious discourses especially. Christ “spake as one having authority.” Our speech as to the manner, as well as to the matter, should betray us that we “have been with Jesus.” Be not slight or careless.
7th, Speak in faith: “I believed, and therefore spake,” Ps. 116:10; 2 Cor. 4:13. It is a fault to speak of those things we neither know nor believe; uncertainties are not fit matter of discourse: “That which we know declare we unto you.”
8th, In speaking, it were good to be looking up in prayer to God in heart; as, if ye have spoken amiss, O Lord, pardon; when ye are called speak, O Lord, open my mouth, and help to a seasonable word, and what to say; to seek a blessing, Lord, bless what I am to discourse to my neighbour. Thus did Nehemiah, Neh. 2:4.
9th, Speak wisely and pertinently to the time and purpose ye intend, and persons ye speak to; that is called “speaking words in season.” Col. 3:16, “Let the Word of Christ dwell richly in you in all wisdom, admonishing one another.”
10th, Speak in fear: it were good to have a bridle always in the mouth, and no word to get out without permission, Ps. 39:1. It was ill said, “Our lips are our own, who is Lord over us;” As there is eating without fear, so there is speaking without fear.
11th, Let not your neighbour’s faults be the subject of your talk, though it be true. “Who back biteth not,” Ps. 15:3. Show thy neighbor his faults.
12th, Speak not of thyself or worth: “Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth,” neither directly nor indirectly; let thy works praise thee. It is an ordinary thing for a proud heart to hunt for estimation from others to itself, by telling its own acts or resolutions. I have added these last two, because professors ordinarily miscarry in these.
