It is pretty well known that in doctrinal views the majority in the Dutch Church is Calvinist; while a minority forms the "Modern School," a school partaking of the rationalism of our century in matters of faith. The battle of the Confessions began in 1842, and is not yet finished. In this year an attempt was made to revive the binding authority of the old confessions. The General Synod in that and the following years successfully resisted the movement. In 1854, a new formula of subscription applicable to candidates for the ministry was introduced, less stringent and more liberal than the old one. The orthodoxy party endeavoured to make it more stringent, the liberals proposed to make it still less so. In 1874, a majority of the General Synod passed the following declaration:-- "The doctrine contained in the Netherland Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of the Synod of Dort, forms the historical foundation of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands. "Inasmuch as this doctrine is not confessed with sufficient unanimity by the community, there can, under the existing circumstances, be no possibility of 'maintaining the doctrine' in the ecclesiastical sense. The community, building on the principles of the Church, as manifested in her origin and development, continues to confess her Christian faith, and thereby to form the expression which may in course of time once more become the adequate and unanimous Confession of the Church. "Meantime, care for the interests of the Christian Church in general and the Reformed in particular, quickening of Christian religion and morality, increase of religious knowledge, preservation of order and unity, and furtherance of love for King and Fatherland--are ever the main object of all to whom any ecclesiastical office is entrusted, and no one can be rejected as a member or a teacher who, complying with all other requirements, declares himself to be convinced in his own conscience that in compliance with the above-named principles, he may belong to the Reformed Church of the Netherlands."[21] This declaration, however, did not pass the Provincial Church Courts, which possess the right of veto; and the law therefore remained as it was. But, in 1881, a new proposal for altering the formula of subscription passed the General Synod. Next year, it was definitely approved, and is now the law of the church. According to it, licentiates to the Ministry, on being admitted by the Provincial Church Courts, are made to promise that they will labour in the Ministry according to their vocation with zeal and faithfulness; that they will further with all their power the interests of the kingdom of God, and, so far as consistent therewith, the interests of the Dutch Reformed Church, and give obedience to the regulations of that Church. There is, however, both in orthodox and in semi-orthodox circles, a wide-spread dissatisfaction with this amount of latitude, and fears are entertained for its continuance.