John Trapp on Ecclesiastes 4:12

Verſ. 12. And if one prevail againſt him, &c.] Vis unita fortior. God bade Gideon to go down to the Camp of the Midianites: and if he feared to go, then to take with him his ſervant Phurah. 1 Sam. 26 Jonathan will not goe without his armor-bearer, David without Abiſhai. Chriſt, when to begin his Paſſion in the Garden, took Peter, James, and John with him, for the benefit of their prayers and company,Pſal. 122.3 Cant. 7. Matth. 16. though they ſerved him but ſorrily. My dove is but one, Cant. 6.9. Jeruſalem is a City compact together. The Church is terrible as an Army with banners: the gates of Hell cannot prevail againſt her. Unity hath victory, but diviſion breeds diſſolution, as it did once in this Iſland when Caeſar firſt entred it. Dum ſinguli pugnant univerſi vincuntur, ſaith Tacitus of the ancient Britans. The Turks pray daily, that the differences amongſt us Chriſtians may be heightned,Camer. medit. Hiſt. cen. 2. cap 23. Rich. Axiom. Polit. p. 86 for that will ſooneſt undoe us. And one of their Emperours, when his Council diſſwaded him from a Warre againſt the Germans, becauſe of their multitude, ſaid, that he feared them not, becauſe ſooner would his fingers be all of one length, than their Princes all of one mind.

And a three-fold cord is not eaſily broken] A proverbial confirmation well interpreted by Lyra; Quanto plures & boni in amicitia conjuncti ſunt, tanto ſtatus corum melioratur. The more they are that unite, ſo they bee good, the better it is with them. See 2 Sam. 10.9, 10, 11, 12. We loſe much of our ſtrength in the loſſe of friends; our cable is as it were untwiſted. Hence David ſo bemoans the loſs of Jonathan, 2 Sam. 1. and made him an Epitaph. Hence St. Paul counted it a ſpecial mercy to him that Epaphroditus recovered, Phil. 1.27.