Romans 1:32

32. Knowing the judgment of God There are two knowledges ascribed by the apostle to the heathen as ennobling man’s nature, yet aggravating his guilt. One is the knowledge of God’s existence, and the other the knowledge of a just retribution. The knowledge and the wicked conduct go hand in hand. Yet man awakes to this consciousness distinctly after the guilt is incurred, and after his becoming inextricably involved in the meshes of destruction. Without a divine aid there is no hope for a single individual.

Worthy of death The capital punishment under the divine government.

Have pleasure They not only deliberately follow every temptation to sin themselves, but they delight in seeing others committing equal sin. So that they love sin not only for the pleasure it yields, but also for the very sake of its being sin. Total depravity (if the phrase must be used) is not true in the sense that man is as bad a being as possibly can be, a total black; for a mortal race so bad would naturally destroy each other, and so could not long exist. But it does mean that man is totally destitute of that love to God which his Spirit only can inspire, and totally unable to attain salvation without that Spirit through the grace of Christ. Yet this does not deny to man’s nature a conscience, aesthetical faculties, nor a susceptibility to the impressions of truth and to the influences of the Divine Spirit. Indeed, man’s soul is adapted for these influences, so that there is a truth in saying that “man is a religious being,” and even a truth, to be carefully guarded, in Tertullian’s maxim that “The human soul is naturally Christian.” Man sins and rejects the Gospel and the Spirit against his own nature. Christianity is the true complement to humanity. And just because man possesses these qualities his apostasies become guilty. Without them he might be, like brutes, or like created immutable fiends, incapable of responsibility. A possibility of becoming good, in some part of the individual being, is requisite in order to an accountability for being bad.