[2] Prideaux gained the patronage of Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, as tutor to his son Charles,[2] and in 1677 he obtained the sinecure rectory of Llandewy-Velfrey, Pembrokeshire.

Finch gave him in 1681 a canonry at Norwich, and Sir Francis North in February 1683 presented him to the rectory of Bladon, Oxfordshire, which included the chapelry of Woodstock.

[1] Prideaux married and left Oxford for Norwich, ahead of James II's appointment (October 1686) of John Massey, a Roman Catholic, as Dean of Christ Church.

In December 1688 he was made archdeacon of Suffolk by his bishop William Lloyd, an office which he held till 1694.

At the Convocation which opened on 21 November 1689 Prideaux was an advocate for changes in the Book of Common Prayer, with a view to the comprehension of Dissenters.

Subsequently he officially corrected a lax interpretation of the Toleration Act 1688, as though it exempted from the duty of attendance on public worship.

In a letter written on 28 November 1694 after receiving the news of John Tillotson's death, he said that he had no expectations of future advancement.

On the translation to Ely (31 July 1707) of John Moore, Prideaux recommended the appointment of Charles Trimnell, his fellow canon, as bishop.

[9] The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations (1715–17)[10] was a significant work, of which many editions were brought out; it drew on James Ussher.

[13] It covered the historical interval between the Old and New Testaments, and led to a controversy between Prideaux and his cousin, Walter Moyle.

[15] He published the following pamphlets: The Validity of the Orders of the Church of England (1688), Letter to a Friend on the Present Convocation (1690), The Case of Clandestine Marriages stated (1691).