What are the Lutheran Confessions?

"Confessions are Scripture digested, assimilated, and beating in the life pulses of the Church.  . . .  Confessions are the under-framework of the Church -- the spars and the ribs of the ship, resting upon and extending from the centre of strength, the Word, to give protection to any point in the circumference, the Church, where there may be weakness and consequent possibility of wreck. Confessions are the rails; and, let us understand well, not the roadbed or the solid rock, on which the ecclesiastical trains run. The bed is Scripture and the rock is Christ, and they determine the direction; but the rails are of human workmanship, condensing the roadbed to an effective point, and giving guidance, protection and impetus to the moving trains above."

Theodore Schmauk, 

The Confessional Principle and The Confessions of the Lutheran Church, 

p. 9, 12.