Sir JoHN Macsrair. 165 
had to obtain neighbouring clergymen to baptise and marry. 
At a visitation of the clergy held in St. Nicholas’ Church, 
Durham, in February, 1577, the church of Billingham was 
represented by two of the churchwardens only. For this 
neglect Mr Magbray and the curate were excommunicated. 
The following year he appeared personally as vicar of Billing- 
ham at a General Chapter held in Heighington Church; his 
excommunication having in the meantime been purged or 
withdrawn. Soon afterwards—date uncertain—he resigned 
the living of Prebendary Cliff, the previous vicar. His with- 
drawal from Billingham may have been concurrent with his 
resignation of the vicarage of Newcastle, which happened 
on the 5th April, 1578, ‘ in the Galilee of Durham Cathedral, 
before the Bishop sitting in person in Visitation.’ Of this, 
however, there is no evidence. He became repossessed of his 
living of Newcastle after no long interval, and he is heard 
of at Billingham no more.’’ 
He died in Newcastle in the early part of November, 
1584. ‘* November, 16, John Mackbray, preacher, and some 
time curate,’ is the entry by which the keeper of St. Nicholas’ 
Register of Burials recorded his interment. Agnes, his wife, 
died in 1586. 
Mr Welford claims for Vicar Macbrair that he ‘‘ belonged 
to the school of John Knox, and, like his exemplar, was a 
HUeninandwearnest preacher. 9495). 2...) Lhe latitude 
of thought and expression which characterised his minis- 
trations became, in after years, the subject of animadversion 
by Dr Jackson, one of his successors in the vicarage.”’ 
The Dr Jackson here referred to was Dr Thomas Jack- 
son, a native of the County of Durham, born in 1578. In Bishop 
Barnes’ Injunctions (Surtees Socy. Proceedings, Vol. xxii., 
p- 21), an extract from Dr Jackson’s works is given. 
Speaking of the “‘ Inordinate Liberty of Prophesying ”’ in Vol. 
ill., p. 273. Dr Jackson, after extolling Bishop Barnes’ system 
of examining Licensed Readers ‘‘ how they had profited in 
their learning,’’ goes on to say: ‘‘ But since the liberty of 
prophesying was taken up, which came but lately into the 
Northern parts (unless it were in the towns of Newcastle 
