You really don't know that in the Early Christian Church---people elected their pastors, bishops even the pope.  Let me cite some references for you.

St. Cypran, a third century African bishop and martyr, recognized the election of Cornelius as Bishop of Rome because he had been "made bishop by the judgment of God and of His Christ, by the testimony of almost all of the clergy, by the vote of the people who were then present, by the college of venerable bishops and good men...."
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St. Cyprian, "Letters" trans. Sister Rose Bernard Donna, THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH,  vol. 51 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964] p. 138.

Patrick Granfield, "Episcopal Elections in Cyprian: Clerical and Lay Participation," THEOLOGICAL STUDIES 37 [1996], p. 41.

Other saints elected to be bishops: St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Augustine and St. Leo the Great [Bishop of Rome---Pope]

The Presbyterians merely copied what we did in our early days.