As a result, the Counter-Reformation was associated with military and political measures utilized by Catholic princes against the German Lutherans. By this phrase, P ütter meant the forced return of Lutherans to Catholicism in those regions that had accepted the Lutheran confession. The term 'Counter-Reformation' was used for the first time by a Lutheran legal historian, Johann Stephan P ütter (1725 –1807) in 1776 in his edition of the Augsburg Confession. Consequently, Protestant historians began to look at sixteenth-century Catholicism from this perspective. Within Protestant scholarship, the term 'Reformation' had, by the seventeenth century, become part of the vocabulary of historians. The goal of the Catholic Reformation was to reform the existing institutional church by fostering a renewal of its spiritual life and mission.

This movement predates Martin Luther and represents the culmination of medieval reform efforts. The improvement and application of Gospel teachings to the life of both the individual and the institution. 'Catholic Reformation' highlights the existence of a spontaneous reform within the church itself that sought to revitalize religious life through Consequently, the Counter-Reformation is understood as repressive, seeking to reemphasize Catholic dogma, to reassert Catholic liturgical life, and to win back those who accepted the Protestant faith. The former term views religious renewal within Catholicism as a reaction against the challenges posed by the Protestant reformers. In their attempts to characterize the nature of early modern Catholicism, historians have utilized the terms 'Counter-Reformation' and 'Catholic Reformation,' which convey different understandings of the church's attempts at reform in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Counter-Reformation by A.G. Dickens