Yet Church consensus is not faith's proper basis; the Samaritan woman in John 4
Yet the Church's consensus and testimony is not the proper and principal basis of our faith, the thing to which its certainty should be reduced. The Church, as we have just said, is what proposes and explains through its ministers — and through private believers too — the things we are to believe, according to God's ordinance. By its testimony and authority we are first led to give them some faith. But our faith does not rest there. It rests on a far more solid foundation. If it goes no further, it is not true and legitimate faith, only a human persuasion.
The Church does for us what the Samaritan woman once did for her townspeople. It opens the way for us to know Christ and his teaching. First the Church's testimony admonishes us to believe in Christ. But after we have heard Christ himself speaking — outwardly in the Word and inwardly in our hearts — our faith no longer rests on the Church's testimony. We can say to it what the Samaritans said to the woman: "Now we do not believe because of your speech, for we ourselves have heard, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world" (John 4).
Latin
XIX. Neque tamen Ecclesiae consensus et testimonium est propria et praecipua fidei nostrae basis, ad quam certitudo ejus reducenda sit. Nam Ecclesia quidem, ut modo docuimus, ea est quae per ministros suos, et privatos etiam fideles, credenda nobis proponit et explicat, juxta Dei ordinationem, ejusque testimonio et authoritate primum inducimur, ut eis aliquam fidem adhibeamus, verum in eo fides nostra non conquiescit, sed longe solidiori fundamento nititur. Quod si ultra non pergat, non est vera et legitima fides, sed tantum humana quaedam persuasio. Videlicet, Ecclesia idem nobis praestat officium quod olim Samaritana mulier concivibus suis. Nam Ecclesia aditum nobis praebet ad cognoscendum Christum, et doctrinam illius. Et Ecclesiae primum testimonio commonemur ut in Christum credamus. Sed postquam Christum ipsum loquentem audivimus, tam extrinsecus in verbo, quam intus in cordibus nostris, jam fides nostra non amplius nititur Ecclesiae testimonio, eique dicere possumus, quod Samaritani mulieri dicebant, Jam non credimus propter loquelam tuam, ipsi enim audivimus, et scimus quod hic est vere Servator mundi.