Susan Amussen illustrates Crawford's argument with a closer look at Puritan social concerns. In her book, An Ordered Society, Amussen argues that as the Puritan view of disorder as part of the cosmic struggle against sin gained ground, the need for strict order increased. Because women produce heirs and raise children, they are seen as the tipping point between order and disorder, stability and chaos (Amussen, 176). Men, and their institutions alike, saw women as a potentially dangerous element within the home who could bring disorder to a family and, by extension, to the state. Due to this fear, Amussen argues, a stronger push to control women and keep them in the home became essential to social order. There was also a greater push to praise the desirable virtues in women. This can be seen in Robert Wolcombe's sermon, The State of the Godly Both in This Life and in The Life To Come, for Lady Courtnay. At the conclusion of his sermon, he lists her best qualities, "Faith, zeale, patience, humility, unstained charity, and the residue of her rare and notable virtues" (Wolcombe, 83).

Similarly, historian Merry Wiesner argues in her book, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, that the Renaissance, Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution largely left the condition and notions about women unchanged from previous centuries. Indeed, women felt greater restrictions both legally and socially, while more firmly being excluded from all formal education and training.

A True Guide to Glory builds on previous scholarship on funeral sermons and death practices. Bettie Anne Doebler and Retha Warnicke have edited numerous facsimiles and reprints of funeral sermons regarding women from the first half of the seventeenth century (see sources page for list of works). Their work provides a useful guide to the ways in which traditional scholarship approaches the topic. The introduction to the facsimiles provide information of the relationships of the deceased, the preacher who gave the sermon, as well as insights into the imagery and content, along with personal information about the woman commemorated. A closer analysis of one particular sermon sheds light on the kinds of information that may be gleaned from the sermon. Hannibal Anne Gamon's sermon, The Praise of a Godly Woman, for Frances, Lady Robartes, read using Voyant's Trends line graph tool, provides a visual representation of frequencies of terms across the document.

Figure 15: Trends visualization of Gamon funeral sermon

As the visualization above shows, the word 'feare' dominates this sermon, rising and falling throughout, but especially resounding at the end of the sermon. This textual analysis supports Warnicke and Doebler's findings that state, "within the final peroration when he comes to the central theme of the fear of the Lord and the accompanying rooting out of sin as the only basis or a Godly life, he uses the dread of the Last Judgement as his major motivational tool" (Doebler & Warnicke, Gamon's Sermon, 36). Such findings coincide with previous scholarship on death rituals of the period that emphasize the fear of damnation to encourage good behavior.

Below is a visualization for the funeral sermons preached for women. The word is set to 'woman' but can also be changed. As with the other Contexts tool, you can go to the lower left-hand side of the screen and put in different terms to learn more about the content of the sermons. In Death, Religion, and the Family in England, 1480-1750, historian Ralph Houlbrooke highlights the importance of biblical passages in sermons, "The main part of the funeral sermons was taken up with the explication and application of a text of scripture" (Houlbrooke, 305). If one enters the word 'god' into the tool's search bar below, the word appears around different passages like Heb. 9. 24, "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God before us", and Rom. 1. 4. "And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (searched through BibleGateway). These encompass the main ideas that can be found throughout funeral sermons of this period; God being a present entity in everyday life as well as Christ and His resurrection from the dead. Another section of the Bible that Houlbrooke cites as popular for citing is Pslams. Searching the term 'psalms' provides some important clues as to the types of biblical passages that were used in these sermons. Houlbrooke provides the example of Psal. 112:6, "Surely he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance" (BibleGateway). This is what was an incredibly important part of the funeral sermons; the remembrance that can happen, not only with the family and friends, but if the sermon was printed, the legacy continued for centuries to come.

Figure 16: Contexts visualization of women's funeral sermons

The most telling example to consider in this study is the word 'wife'. Searching the Contexts tool show the emphasis placed upon the woman's status as wife, her position in relation to her husband, and her primary role in the family. Frequent word associations with 'wife' include 'good' and 'family'. In addition, 'wife' is most often associated with 'kind', 'faithful', 'loyal', and 'affection' fairly often. All of these attributes would be considered traditional and expected of the good wife. Needless to say, the type of woman that would merit a funeral sermon fit to be printed would need to be considered a paragon and role model for the godly wife. While funeral sermons for women stressed the virtues, primarily of a good wife-the carrot, so to speak. The Contexts tool highlights the stick: vanity is often associated with the woman and should be avoided.

Figure 17: Bubbles visualization of women's funeral sermons

Bubbles is a Voyant tool that presents term frequencies in motion. This visualization shows the persistence, through the entire 73-item female sermon corpus, of certain themes. If one watches the visualization long enough themes of god, death, life, faith, and good appear consistently throughout (use the speed control to speed up or slow down the visualization). Any analysis of women's funeral sermons needs to make sure and address them. This also helps to prove the value of digital methodology. One could decide to read through all 73 sermons regarding women and could potentially pull out the same themes, but there are limitations to that method as well. Our brains can make mistakes and we may have better days than others while reading through such a large corpus. Doing the same work through Voyant allows a more precise reading with same outcome in a considerably smaller amount of time; time that can bes used to follow interesting areas of inquiry identified by the visualizations.

What all of this helps to illustrate prove is that early modern funeral sermons, especially from the seventeenth century, and those regarding women, served to help maintain social order and hierarchical gender expectations. The sermons offered two benefits to the deceased and those left behind. The sermon normally presented the "best" version of the deceased. This godly image of a recently departed woman bolstered the reputation not only the dead, but the family, as well. While the sermons did provide some level of comfort and commemoration for the deceased and their families, an important purpose seems to have been to encourage those still living, as well as those who bought the printed sermons, to live within the confines of their social standing and to strive to live their most godly lives. This was how early modern contemporaries saw order, and therefore society as a whole, being maintained.