was emphasizing.

Our Lord's memorable Sermon on the Mount, which occupies the fifth,
sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew is mostly about this heavenly
kingdom, the blessed who possess it, the unrighteous who cannot enter
and how we may all attain it, but not one word about water baptism.

This ancient ordinance was far away from the mind of our Lord amid the
dim and receding shadows of Judaism[147] when he taught that multitude
on the Mount and gave his kingdom to his saints, the poor in spirit, the
pure in heart, the meek and the merciful, and encouraged us all to seek
first this kingdom, which he said those only can enter who do the will
of our Father in Heaven.[148] The kingdom of God is mentioned more than
sixty times and the kingdom of Heaven twenty times in the New Testament
but water baptism is never once named nor alluded to in any of those
eighty texts.

This silence impressively suggests that water baptism is entirely
foreign to this kingdom and must belong to another dispensation.

Plainly no door of entrance to this kingdom by way of water baptism had
been discovered at the time the New Testament was written. Jesus said
that he himself was the door to this sheepfold and that he is a thief
and a robber who climbs up some other way.[149]

We read that John baptized with water but Jesus should baptize with the
Holy Spirit, and with fire;[150] and again: Except a man be born of
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God; and again:
Except a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God.[151]