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"The succession which the Fathers meant": Laud on episcopal succession

A final extract from A relation of the conference between William Laud, late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mr. Fisher the Jesuite, in which Laud recognises episcopal succession to be for the bene esse of the Church, not of its esse:

... for Succession in the general I shall say this. 'Tis a great happiness where it may be had Visible and Continued, and a great Conquest over the Mutability of this present world. But I do not finde any one of the Ancient Fathers that makes Local, Personal, Visible, and Continued Succession, a Necessary Signe or Mark of the true Church in any one place. And where Vincentius Lirinensis calls for Antiquity, Universality, and Consent, as great Notes of Truth, he hath not one word of Succession ... And once more, before I leave this Point. Most evident it is, That the Succession which the Fathers meant, is not tyed to Place or Person, but 'tis tyed to the Verity of Doctrine ... For so Tertullian expresly. Beside the order of Bishops running down (in Succession) from the beginning, there is required 'Consanguinitas Doctrinae', that the Doctrine be allyed in blood to that of Christ and his Apostles. So that if the Doctrine be no kinn to Christ, all the Succession become strangers, what nearness soever they pretend. And Irenaeus speaks plainer than he. We are to obey those Presbyters, which together with the Succession of their Bishopricks have received 'Charisma Veritatis', the gift of truth.

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