He received his early education at St. Paul's School, and obtained an exhibition at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he was admitted as a sizar 26 March 1683.
In 1708 he was presented by his old pupil, Sir Nicholas Carew, to the rectory of Beddington, Surrey, which he held in commendam to his death.
In 1717 and 1718 he delivered the Boyle Lectures, which were published the following year, his subject being The Natural Obligations to believe the Principles of Religion and Divine Revelation.
He held the see barely three years, having died in London of small-pox, caught at the coronation of George II, 26 October 1727.
He was buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster, where a mural tablet was erected to his memory in the south aisle of the chancel.