This principle is reaffirmed by the same court in the John's Island Church case.[9] And in Den v. Bolton[10] the Supreme Court of New Jersey asserts the same principle.
The Supreme Court of Illinois, in the case of Ferraria v. Vascouelles, refers to the case of Shannon v. Frost with approval, and adopts the language of the court, that the judicial eye cannot penetrate the veil of the church for the forbidden purpose of vindicating the alleged wrongs of excised members; when they became members, they did so upon the condition of continuing or not as they and their churches might determine, and they thereby submit to the ecclesiastical power, and cannot now invoke the supervisory power of the civil tribunals.
And in the case of Chase v. Cheney, recently decided in the same (Illinois) court, Judge Lawrence says: "The opinion implies that in the administration of ecclesiastical discipline, and where no other right of property is involved, their loss of the clerical office or salary incident to such discipline, a spiritual court is the exclusive judge of its own jurisdiction, and that its decision of that question is binding on the secular courts."
In the case of Watson v. Ferris,[11] which was a case growing out of the schism in the Presbyterian Church in Missouri, the court held that whether a case was regularly or irregularly before the assembly, was a question which the assembly had the right to determine for itself, and no civil court could reverse, modify, or impair its action in a matter of merely ecclesiastical concern.
The opinion of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, expressed in the case of the German Reformed Church v. Seibert,[12] sets forth that the decisions of ecclesiastical courts, like every other judicial tribunal, are final, as they are the best judges of what constitutes an offence against the word of God and the discipline of the church. Any other than those courts must be incompetent judges of matters of faith, discipline, and doctrine; and civil courts, if they should be so unwise as to attempt to supervise their judgments on matters which come within their jurisdiction, would only involve themselves in a sea of uncertainty and doubt, which would do anything but improve religion and good morals.
In the subsequent case of McGinnis v. Watson,[13] this principle is again applied and supported by a more elaborate argument.
Lord Chancellor Eldon, upon delivering the opinion of the House of Lords in the celebrated test-case of Craigdallie v. Aikman, reported in 2 Bligh, 529 (1 Dow, 1), said: That they (the law lords) had adopted this principle as their rule and guide for cases of dispute respecting the right to property conveyed for the use of religious worship—that it is a trust which is to be enforced for the purpose of maintaining that religious worship for which the property was devoted, and in the event of schism (the original deed having made no provision for such cases) its uses are to be enforced, not on behalf of a majority of the congregation, nor yet exclusively in behalf of the party adhering to the general body, but in favor of that part of the society adhering to and maintaining the original principles upon which it was founded: the exclusive standard or guide by which conflicting claims are to be decided is adherence to the church itself.
Regarding, therefore, church property, or the property of religious societies, communities, or orders, in the same manner as the private property of any other corporation or individual, it may with safety be assumed as a settled and fundamental law that ought to be recognized by every Christian and civilized state, that it is bound to make just indemnity and compensation to the citizen or subject, society, or corporation, or community, for all property taken under the pressure of state necessity for the public good, convenience, or safety. The eminent domain of the state should be so exercised as to work no wrong, to inflict no private injury, without giving to the party aggrieved ample redress. This doctrine was not engrafted on the public law to give license to despotic and arbitrary sovereigns. It has its foundation in the organization of society, and is essential to the maintenance of public virtue in every government, whether a republic, a monarchy, or a despotism. It is of the very essence of sovereignty, for without it a state cannot perform its first and highest duties—those required by justice and righteousness. Whenever, therefore, from necessity a state appropriates to public use the private property of an individual or of a corporation, lay or religious, it is obliged by a law as imperative as that by which it makes the appropriation, to give to the party aggrieved redress commensurate with the injury sustained. Upon any other principle the social compact would work mischief and wrong. The state might impoverish the citizen it was established to protect, and trample on those rights of property, security for which was one of the great objects of its creation.
All the elementary writers of authority sustain these views of the duty and obligations of states.
Justice requires, says Vattel, that the community or individual be indemnified at the public charge.