Someone on Reddit asked where this passage can be found in the suttas.
After failing to find it via Duck Duck Go, search here, and using an A.I. search ( with laughable mistakes ) I’ve become curious about it myself.
The passage:
“Now, O monks, are you going to say that we respect the master and, out of respect for him, we believe this and that? You must not say that. Is it not so that you will only accept as true that which you have seen, known, and apprehended for yourselves?”
My guess is that the translation of the quote is very old and the footnotes on page 432 involve some academic convention I have forgotten being long, long, long out of school.
This seems to be distorted version of questioning in MN 38
“Bhikkhus, knowing and seeing in this way, would you speak thus: ‘The Teacher is respected by us. We speak as we do out of respect for the Teacher’?”—“No, venerable sir.”—“Knowing and seeing in this way, would you speak thus: ‘The Recluse says this, and we speak thus at the bidding of the Recluse’?”409—“No, venerable sir.”—“Knowing and seeing in this way, would you acknowledge another teacher?”—“No, venerable sir.”—“Knowing and seeing in this way, would you return to the observances, tumultuous debates, and auspicious signs of ordinary recluses and brahmins, taking them as the core [of the holy life]?”—“No, venerable sir.”—“Do you speak only of what you have known, seen, and understood for yourselves?” —“Yes, venerable sir.”
“Good, bhikkhus. So you have been guided by me with this Dhamma, which is visible here and now, immediately effective, inviting inspection, onward leading, to be experienced by the wise for themselves. For it was with reference to this that it has been said: ‘Bhikkhus, this Dhamma is visible here and now, immediately effective, inviting inspection, onward leading, to be experienced by the wise for themselves.’
