Made deacon in the same year and ordained priest in 1857, he was successively curate of Deane (1858–60), and then the first vicar of Wingates, Lancashire (1860-1).
In 1861 Archibald Tait, Bishop of London, presented him to the rectory of Wapping, and in 1865 Hulme's trustees nominated him to the perpetual curacy of Accrington.
In January 1868 Robert Gray (bishop of Cape Town), offered Macrorie the bishopric of the church in Natal.
The government of Lord Derby disapproved the appointment and refused to grant the Queen's mandate for Macrorie's consecration in any place where the Act of Uniformity was in force.
Eventually Bishop Gray himself consecrated Macrorie at Cape Town on 25 January 1869, regardless of a protest signed by 129 adherents of Colenso.
But his want of tact alienated moderate opinion, and his fierce denunciations of Colenso's supporters widened the prevailing breach.