Career
Stephens obtained his Master of Arts at Street Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1671, and his Bachelor of Divinity in 1678. He became rector (1690) of Sutton, Surrey, now part of London. In this way he linked the lack of religious tolerance with the growth of religious skepticism.
On 30 January 1700 he was asked to preach the traditional sermon before the House of Commons of England in memory of Charles I. (He had delivered a sermon on the same occasion six years earlier, before the Lord Mayor) He omitted the prayer for the King and Royal Family, and his comments, which included a suggestion that the sermons be discontinued, resulted in a vote of censure.
The text was reprinted in 1752.