Though the followers of Calvin speak of “total” depravity, not even the greatest sin can obliterate the natural inclination to adhere to God’s law.  Thomas Aquinas goes so far as to suggest that “Even in the lost the natural inclination to virtue remains, else they would have no remorse of conscience.”

One might think this fact mitigates either their guilt or their condition.  It doesn't, for what it really means is that the wicked man is divided not only against God, but against himself.  In a sense he receives what he sought, but ultimately he does not find it sweet.  His actual inclinations are at war with his natural inclinations; his heart is riddled with desires that oppose its deepest longing; he demands to have happiness on terms that make happiness impossible.  In the end, his very nature concurs with God in inflicting on him the just punishment that eternal law decrees.  He is, in this sense, his own hangman.

Perhaps this is what Vergil means in Dante’s Comedy, when he says of the damned who leap eagerly from Charon’s boat,

And they are prompt to cross the river, for

Justice Divine so goads and spurs them on,

that what they fear turns into their desire.

(Esolen trans.)