In this class of cases, we think the rule of action which should govern the civil courts, founded in a broad and sound view of the relations of church and state under our system of laws, and
supported by a preponderating weight of judicial authority, is that whenever the questions of discipline or of faith or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have been decided by the highest of these church
judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the legal tribunals must accept such decisions as final and as binding on them in their application to the case before them.