He led for some years the life of a migratory student, visiting Berlin, Rome, Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam, Oxford, and Cambridge.
Wilkins was ordained in the church of England, and Wake made him in 1715 librarian at Lambeth Palace, and rector of Mongeham Parva (30 April 1716) and Great Chart (12 September 1719).
He contributed the Latin prefaces to John Chamberlayne's polyglot edition of the Lord's Prayer, and Thomas Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica.
He edited the following works: His sole English publication seems to have been a Sermon preached at the Consecration of Thomas [Bowers], Lord Bishop of Chichester London, 1722, 4to.
He left in manuscript Historical Account of the Church of Hadleigh which passed into the possession of his successor in the living, Dr. Tanner, and an Historia Ecclesiae Alexandrinae.