He entered St Edmund Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in April 1698, after having, according to Hearne, served six and a half years of his time as apprentice to a glover in London.
In 1705 he was chaplain to the lord mayor, Sir Owen Buckingham, and apparently about this time was 'commonly known as Father Fox'.
He was, at any rate for most of his life, a strong Whig, and in 1727 he preached at what was called the Reading lecture a sermon which gave great offence to a number of the clergy who formed the audience.
After being repeated as an assize sermon at Abingdon, it was published under the title of Judgment, Mercy, and Fidelity, the Weightier Matters or Duties of the Law (Matt.
Joseph Slade of St Laurence's, Reading, who eventually published a sermon in reply to it, with the letters prefixed.